Topic: My first home developed roll of film :-P

[Thom Stone]

Dev'd my first roll of FP4 the other day, thought i would share this bench mark ocassion with some fellow filmwasters. and also use the thread to discuss different tips/techniques for black and white developing. and also to ask if anyone has any experience doing C-41 process black and white, or colour in ilford ID-11?

anyway my shots...

please forgive the dust on most, was so excited i did not clean my scanner :-P

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomo_lomo/sets/72157624439299605/

[Photo_Utopia]

Looks good FP4 was my first home processed roll-your results look better than mine-well done.

Regards
Mark Antony

[Thom Stone]

very kind mark :-P thanks alot. I will keep you posted on my dark room adventures as i get more adept. any tips or tricks to share?

[Diane Peterson]

Excellent! I know how you feel..such a feeling of accomplishment..I have been doing this for over a year..always wonder what took me so long!

[Alan]

same as diane! been doing it over a year now! easy peasy!
you should give caffenol-C a twist, great fun!

well done, good result and a really nice image too, win-win!

Alan

[Thom Stone]

:-) cheers alan I will have a look into caffenol-C for sure!

[Terry]

Great eye for composition.  I like the whole roll.

[Urban Hafner]

If you want to try Caffenol you have to check out http://caffenol.blogspot.com/ . It has examples and a modified recipe for hight speed (i.e. everything above ISO 100) film.

Urban
 

[sapata]

Congratulations thom... very well processed ! I had a look at the flickr pics and they have a nice retro feeling. How did you like mixing the ID11 powder ? I used to use it as well but since I've discovered Rodianal I'm in love, diferent results but way easiear...

[Thom Stone]

Congratulations thom... very well processed ! I had a look at the flickr pics and they have a nice retro feeling. How did you like mixing the ID11 powder ? I used to use it as well but since I've discovered Rodianal I'm in love, diferent results but way easiear...

I found the powder very user friendly, quite like the hands on feel of it. i will definitely have a think about rodianal (maybe after ive got rid of the 5l of ID-11 ive just purchased :-P) any comparisons between the two online anywhere? would love to see the difference.

[sapata]

Sorry for my misspelling... it's Rodinal

Anyways... there's quite a lot about this subject in here and on the web, some people say it gives more grain than others... etc...

What I found really easy is the fact that it's highly concentrate... it comes in small botles (instead of having several botles of the ID11 hanging around your place).

It's also very cheap and will hardly go off, for example for one roll of 120 in my tank I use about 5.5 ml of Rodinal to 550ml of water (1:100 stand development).

[Ed Wenn]

Congrats on your first home dev....always a special moment for us geeks. Welcome!
 

BTW, if you use Rodinal at 1:25 with ASA400 film you'll get some super fat grain. Works well in some instances, but not for everyone.



Tri-X + Rodinal



This second image was actually Efke 100, but you can still see the grain coming through nicely.

[Thom Stone]

hmm i quite like that grain!

however I am yet undecided on whether i like deliberately grainy stuff.. probably coming from my battle against ISO grain on my DSLR (sorry is that a faux pason here? :-) when shooting at gigs and stuff. not really explored using it as an artistic effect. as i said i think i will stick with the old ID-11 til i get really bored as ive spent the money now, which was quite a lot for a peniless photographer/musician, well quite a lot to take out of the fags and booze jar anyhow. I will have a think and if i feel some mega grain is necessary i may give it a shot :-P it definitely sounds far more user friendly, still trying to get hold of some bottles to divvy up my 5l of ID-11 into

thanks a load for the comparison and advice btw ed, greatly appreciated

[Ed Wenn]

Aaah, but that's the great thing about film grain over digital noise....it's beautiful. A friend of mine who dabbles a bit in both digital and trad photography, but has no axe to grind with either, likes to say that film 'fails' far more attractively than digital. Now, fat grain ain't exactly a 'failure', but I hope you see what he means.

[Francois]

I know I've always been a fan of big grain. Gives the images a gritty mood you can't get any other way.

[LT]

I'm not keen ... well, sometimes I am, but it has to be the "right kind" of grain.  I detest large grain that is mushy - it's just plain ugly. And this is what I've always ended up with by using rodinal and 35mm films.

I do like nice crisp small but evident grain.  Kenna's prints are a case in point.  He only goes for about 7" x 7" from 120 negs, but there is gorgeous clear yet small and crispy grain in the transition between very dark and light.  It almost looks like air-brush splatter and is amazing.  I understand he uses d-76 and tri-x - but I am surprised by how evident the grain is given it is 120. I suspect he's using hard grade burns to push the grain contrast further - but it's still surprising given the size of the prints.

Conversely, I really dislike totally grain free prints too.  I used to use perceptol with delta 100 in 120 roll film and the resulting prints were so grain free that they looked like mono-water colours. 

I prefer the middle ground of using medium speed old-skool type films (FP4+ is my choice) and a reasonably fine grain developer.  the grain isn't absent, but it isn't obtrusive and actually helps to raise the perception of sharpness (although not necessarily resolution).

[Thom Stone]

Aaah, but that's the great thing about film grain over digital noise....it's beautiful. A friend of mine who dabbles a bit in both digital and trad photography, but has no axe to grind with either, likes to say that film 'fails' far more attractively than digital. Now, fat grain ain't exactly a 'failure', but I hope you see what he means.

yeah i do agree actually, it is an entirely different look to digital noise for sure.

however i think im with Leon on this one. theres a time and a place and too little grain is boring, i think it entirely depends on the look I'm going for. will concider rodinal when im going for the gritty punky grungey type look on a band shoot or something :-P would be a bit gutted if it was too much grain in the end and i couldnt take it back though

[Thom Stone]

p.s. hopefully trying some HP5 through the ID-11 tonight or 2mrw, will let you guys know how it goes. you never know i may find my perfect balance of grain :-P

[LT]

p.s. hopefully trying some HP5 through the ID-11 tonight or 2mrw, will let you guys know how it goes. you never know i may find my perfect balance of grain :-P

It all depends on what you are going to be doing with it.  If you are doing darkroom prints, I think you'll really like the hp5+ and ID-11 (especially if you dilute 1:3).  If you are going to be scanning and a reasonable amount of digital local and global contrast control, I think you'll find things will get overly grainy very quickly.  Scanning and digital manipulation really increases apparent grain.



 

[Thom Stone]

im sadly not equipped for dark room printing yet but am in the market for an enlarger. it will be a scan jobby, however i do very little digital manipulation to my negatives, maybe a little bit of extra contrast on the scanning software and maybe five mins in photoshop getting rid of dust and stuff

[Francois]

I suspect he's using hard grade burns to push the grain contrast further - but it's still surprising given the size of the prints.

He could also be using a point source enlarger. These things give crazy sharp grain when used properly (and also crazy sharp dust and scratches )